7BR instructed in no.1 case for 2016 as listed in The Lawyer’s recently published top 20

7BR’s Hugh Preston QC is acting on behalf of around 1,000 claimants in the PIP Breast Implant Group Litigation relating to breast implants manufactured by French company PIP and alleged to be substandard; recently placed at the top of The Lawyer’s top 20 cases in the pipeline for the year ahead.

Instructed by Mark Harvey partner at Hugh James, the Group Litigation Order (GLO) was granted by the High Court in Cardiff in 2012 in relation to personal injury claims being made by women who received breast implants manufactured by French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP). The company used purportedly cohesive silicone gel breast implants.

The GLO is for the final determination of whether the supply of PIP implants by clinics breached the implied terms of the Sale of Goods or Supply of Goods and Services Acts in that the implants were not fit for purpose.

The case has already been in court a number of times over preliminary issues and the trial has been adjourned more than once.

Solicitors for the lead defendants, Transform Medical Group, recently changed. The group went into administration in June last year and Charles Russell Speechlys was instructed on the administration. The firm has now also come on the record for the litigation, replacing Transform’s advisers BLM.